Hi,
This is my review of Fortune Perfectus FSR602 175/65R14 purchased for $46 from PriorityTire. The total price was 198 including shipping, sales tax, state tire fees.
The tires came in 2 days shipped via FedEx from their warehouse in Orlando, FL. I live in Miami, FL (5 hours away driving)
Fortune is a Chinese brand and the tires say "Made in Thailand" and have date code from May 2021
and installed on Jan 11 2022
https://www.prioritytire.com/fortune...l-season-tire/
Im in the mood to gamble. Im gonna get these $46.76 each and then I can contribute a review for our Forum. 65,000 warranty so "lets see"
Fortune Tire company a subsidiary of Prinx Chengshan (https://en.prinxchengshan.com/index.php?id=aboutus)
The business of Prinx Chengshan can be traced back to 1976. Headquartered in Rongcheng City, Shandong Province, PRC, Prinx Chengshan is a modern enterprise focusing on the R&D, manufacturing, sales of tires and the provision of tire full-life-cycle services. Over the years, Prinx Chengshan has built two major production bases in China and Thailand, and established three major sales centers in China, North America and Europe to develop a global business operation.
Prinx Chengshan owns four renowned tire brands, namely Prinx, Chengshan, Austone and Fortune.The three major products of the company are all steel radial tires, semi-steel radial tires, and bias tires. The products have obtained certificates from relevant institutions in major tire markets worldwide, including DOT in the United States and ECE and R117 in the European Union etc.
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I had some bad expereinces with the installation (no fault of the tires themselves) and I will detail that story below. But as far as my first impressions the tires seem well made. The ride feels less harsh than my old 7 year old Ensaves and I am still doing the fuel economy calculations but last night I took a trip on Expressway that I was going about 65 mph average and the fuel economy on the instrument cluster said 44.5 mph that was for a 30 minute there and 30 minute back home trip with very little traffic because on the way home It was 3 in the morning. So my initial estimates are that that thbe fuel economy is very similar to the old tires probably within 1 or 2% Further calculations will be needed to come to a concluson.
Here I have them finally mounted after 2 days of headaches and having to go to 2 different tire shops and I have sprayed the sidewalls down with 303 sun protectant to mitigate the dry-rott and UV damage that the sun does to tires.
https://postimg.cc/gallery/QCBQLMg
Story of some difficulties I had dealing with the local small shop dumbasses:
This is a placeholder for the review I will write tomorrow and place pictures. The tires seem nice but I had a bad experience at local small tire shop today. The tires came from PriorityTire and was 198 shipped including taxes and state fees. The shop charged me $60 cash for mounting and balancing.
But when I got home I realized the installer put them on INSIDE OUT! There was lettering on the tire that said "Inside" and since I am staring at the tire it should say "Outside"
So I went right back to the shop and the employee (I suppose a newer employee) starts making excuses about how he did nothing wrong because the yellow dot is right there and that he placed it right next to the valve stem but on this tire I guess the red dot and yellow dot are supposed to be on the inside of the car (where you cant see them at all) and then his boss comes and agrees with me that he put them on inside-out. So then the employee makes a disgruntled face and is all pissy about the fact that he has to start all over. And anyways now I am in an angry mood now that I got home so Im gonna write the review tomorrow but basically I am sour because I am pretty sure that the second time that he did not align the yellow dot perfectly with the valve stem (since the dot was on the other side) and the guy was behaving impatient.
Whatever, man. I dont know why I am a magnet for so many things going wrong ALL THE DAMN TIME and it seems these flunkies always mess something up and thats why I want to just change my own oil, coolant, brake fluid and so forth because these nimcompoops always do something wrong and Im just sick and tired of trusting these clowns, I just want to do the work myself with my own hands.
Its not the fist time that these "experts" know less than I do because they didnt watch 5 different YouTube tutorials the way that I did made by YouTube celebrities with millions of likes.
So when they dont do it the way that the YouTube celebrity says to do it and I complain and they get so huffy-puffy about it.
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Next day: I go for a ride that night on the expressway and around 65 mph I can feel the car shaking back and forth with textbook symptoms of a tire that is not properly balanced! Makes me furious!!!
Then I get under the car to inspect and sure enough the yellow dots are not near the tire valve stem and it seems the second time I went to the tire shop Luisito Tire that they haphazardly mounted the tire to rim and didnt concentrate on the balancing (I can only speculate here as to why they did a poor job but I can assure you that I was very polite and smiled and friendly. I am not a jerk or ever speak condescending to them).
So that morning I go again (3rd time now) to Luisito Tire around 10:05 am (I figure it wont be too busy) and then I get there and the manager/owner is not there and instead it just the Urban-dressed young guy that originally had botched the job and he greets me with a face like "Now what????" kind of thing and I explained to him about the yellow dots and show it to him and he says "Mannnn, you have any idea how much work it takes to get this thing on and off, dawg...." and I respond. "I can see you have 3 cars here and that its busy, why dont I come back later on like at 2pm?" And he says "Yeah, ok" and I am thinking the young-man is probably going to get reprimanded by the manager when the manager returns and that this is what is going on in his head.
So anyways at this point I start to ask myself if the amount of stress I am enduring is even worth the $60 of aggravation and I start to fear maybe they will be rough with the tires next time and scratch the rim (already the hubcaps are scuffed up with new scratches that were not there before but I never mentioned that at all) and maybe they may even fould up the TPMS sensors so I decide to just bring the car to another place.
I see some NAPA service place and it seems they have the high-tech Hunter machine and advertise alignments and computer balance so I decide to go there and right off the bat the guy is trying to sell me on an alignment but I say lets just balance the tires first because I dont have alot of money and just lost my $60 from the other place. SO he tells me come back in 1 hour and they will attend to me and I do and the new mechanic who is older guy and seems like he knows what he is doing advises me 2 of the tires where balanced and the other 2 where not in balance and charges me $40. And there is a 3rd low-level mechanic who uses and impact wrench to remove the tores and hand them to the guy who blanaces them with the machine and then the same low-level tech puts them back on with the impact gun and I am suspecting he has over-torqued them but I dont say anything and leave.
Then go on the xpressway but traffic is so heavy that I cant go 70 mph, too many cars in my way but finally I get on Palmetto and am able to go up to 80 mph and so far the shaking has stopped and the tires finally seem to be in balance.
Then next morning I decide I am going to use a torque wrench here at home to put them at the proper 72 ft pounds of torque and I proceed to use a 4-way cross lug wrench to loosen the bolts but I CANT! Because they are SEVERELY overtorqued at well over 100 ft pounds it seems....becaause I always use a 4 way lug wrench myself when I rotate my tires at home or when I repair a flat.
So I go back to the Napa auto care center and ask them to use the impact gun to loosen them please and then I will tighten them with my 4 way lug wrench and the owner makes THIS FACE like I am asking him for a freaking bone-marrow transplant and has a real bad-attitude and (by the way I was very polite and even explained it as I am a skinny guy not so strong and thats why I must torque them only to 72 ft pounds to make sure I dont get flat on side of the road one day and unable to get the tires off) so as you cna see I am a very nice guy and I cant understand why this guy is giving me a nasty face and then he loosens just the driver side front wheel and starts to walk away and I say "Excuse me I need all 4 of them loosened please" and then he makes another face and sucks his teeth pouting like a "8 year old kid that I didnt buy him an ice cream cone" but proceeds to begrudgingly take the other 3 loose. So then I go with the lug wrench just tighten them up to a reasonable torque in order to get home and then use my torque wrench to fine tune it.
And I should have said something to that guy "I dont appreciate your sour attitutude" but I didnt say nothing but let me tell you, he just cost himself the $80 alignment fee because now I am not going to go to his shop because I have seen his TRUE FACE and I can tell what kind of guy he is and nothing worst then dealing with a mechanic like that when you return to the shop (That is the true litmus test) when they give you a bad attitude.
So anyways thats where we are at and I dont think Im even gonna do the alignment at all because the car is not veering off to one side when I let go of the steering wheel and I only have 27k miles so forget it.